Nostalgic thread, here I come ^^
In year 2000 I was 16 and got introduced to diablo 2 by a good rl-friend, time was easy and we pvmed with other rl friends, did some fun dueling and later on formed a pk-clan.
By nature I'm an curious person, so it was logical I grew my knowledge around d2, which was the reason I was member of plenty of d2 forums. I found out I could buy stuff in small forums with not so "value-safe-traders" and sell this stuff for huge amounts at AoW for example. This is how I got my first half decent pvp char to compete with other pvpers.
So I started to play duelliga 1n1 ladder and shortly afterwards was invited to the clan: Legit Ear Hunters after defeating one of their top necs @ 1n1 ladder (kaland). This all happened in my very first season @ DL. LEH brought me into serious pvp. Guys like Ghost, Kaland, Ziege, Rene, the amazon guy (Fragdieb was one of his ama's I think), and some others took care of me, introduced me to other oldschool guys, played Blutmoor Server with me etc. LEH was like a family, I didnt find anything similar up to date. Sadly most of them broke up or just quit with d2 when 1.10 and WOW came along.
Some months later I did join TC Clan, very friendly, accessible, fellow Austrians. We played many successful tours together and got close friends those days. Although we do live on the exact opposite of our country, we did manage to meet up 2 times and enjoy some wasted evenings. So I continued playing DL, joined AoW league, participated in tours, etc. and also was happy to join that (very first?) era of EuroPvp. I also was playing 1n1 ladder there, and even got into the playoffs in my 2nd season I think, but then got thrown out at home and had to cancel it due to no internet. Guys you won't believe, how hard it was to not play this match. Luckily me and my parents did get along with another after some months.
I shortly afterwards started studying, moved into another city and had freedom en masse. So I was able to moderate as assassin mod @aow/pr, did some community stuff like creating tournament winner pictures, do some community work and host some tournaments from time to time. I also had the honor to administrate AoW for a short time span.
Finally, after DL, blutmoor, AoW, PR, have died, I think EP#2 was the last community who was able to gather europe's pvpers. Those days, Spirals and Vik were administrators if I recall correctly, though I remember Spirals retired at some point. Anyway, those pvpers, who remained left at those difficult times, loved to be at EP#2, play some tours, chat, train, have fun. Great days of pleasure allthough member numbers were small.
Finnaly we hit the year 2008/2009 (unsure) where many people lost nearly all their stuff through that huge warden wipe. In my case it was a modified d2 language .dll file *lol* to play the game in english. For me, this was the point where I quit it. Years of work, gone. D2 duelers, gone.
Although I did stay in contact with some D2 guys after my quit, I never touched D2 again unless that 2 week lasting lvl 49 d2jsp excursion *cough* *trolololol*.
From there on I was waiting for the release of D3 just to get disappointed in late 2011, and additionally to get disappointed by the PVP content we get. It's 2012 now, I am 28 and posting my d2 history on a forum in the internetz
TL;DR
Playing diablo 2 was fun and I met many nice people from all over Europe I had an AWESOME time with. I hope all those people will be back in d3. Love you guys.
Richi
